You are missing the point - Israel had to respond somehow - if this would have happened to any other country they would have responded much worse. What I am saying is that there was an immediately knee- jerk reaction without a brief pause to think of the ramifications.

Hamas is a horrible Jihadi extremist terrorist organization, and knee jerk reactions from Israel is how they win moral support. Israel always gets roped into that zero-sum game, so maybe they need a different approach. What would you have done?